


Terpsichore

by Elle_Nahiara



Series: YOI Collab Team #9 - Deity AU [4]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Angst, Deities, F/M, Star-crossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 13:06:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11783763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elle_Nahiara/pseuds/Elle_Nahiara
Summary: The whims of the Gods were more often cruel than kind, and Terpsichore knew this too well, being one of them. What they gave, they could take away at the slightest offence, and never return.Or, Lilia remembers.





	Terpsichore

**Author's Note:**

> For YoiCollab Games :)

The whims of the Gods were more often cruel than kind, and Terpsichore knew this too well, being one of them. What they gave, they could take away at the slightest offence, and never return.

Which was why she certainly expected young Yuri Plisetsky would not disappoint her. Terpsichore’s reputation was at stake. After all, she’d been told several times that the prince had a temper and that she shouldn’t give him her blessing, no matter how fervently her devotee had prayed and pleaded and offered his full determination in exchange of the Goddess of Dance and Choir’s favor.

“Hey, who’s this hag?!” The prince’s voice raised, as he approached Terpsichore.

She was beginning to think they were right.

She made her chosen human form raise her chin and give Yuri a cold stare. “I’m Lilia Baranovskaya, and I will be playing lyre for your presentation today.”

Yuri crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve never heard of you! I said I needed the best lyre player for today!” 

She wondered if behind that was only a sense of entitlement or if he felt anxiety. After all, his dancing would be a wedding gift for an event full of Gods, and for the youth’s family. Her stare revealed to her that it was also the latter and she felt her expression soften for a moment. But nervousness was not tolerable when you were the best. It was an impediment. And pride… Pride was humankind’s downfall.

She was about to tell about how she had beaten every other lyre player that had deigned audition, when a strong voice interrupted:

“Yuratchka! Where are you?! Stop bothering people and come rehearse!”

Lilia recognized the tenor of that voice, the deep anger, the screaming power of it. Yakov Feltsman, the royal dance master. She had heard his voice several times already that day and more before that. She still could not pinpoint what was wrong about it. Something was off. But she could not stop and analyze it, for the young prince defiantly stared at her, still.

“What’s wrong with you, hag?! I’m talking to you!” He demanded, when a bald old man came from the other room.

And then the man talked, with the same anger and impatience Lilia had been avoiding the whole day.

Lilia would have liked to say that her reaction was cold and rational, that there wasn’t shock written on her face. But try as she might, she could not escape her surprise.

Now, Lilia was aware that time passed for humans, and they got old. That their bodies changed. They got smaller and greyer. But she had missed how much time had gone by.

Yakov had once been young. An obvious truth, that was. All old mortals had once been born, had once been young. 

Still, not every man had been young in the way Yakov had been. Full of dedication and determination, he had crawled out of dire situations to become the most renowned dancer, if not in the world, at least the kingdom.

Women had thrown flowers at his feet and men had shed tears at his performances. Nobility had rushed and fought in order to have him as a guest. He’d been praised even amongst the gods. 

And, of course, she had noticed him.

She still noticed him. Yakov, never a large individual, still stood straight, held the stance of a dancer, even though his aging bones and muscles did no longer allow him to move like one.

Yakov stepped towards his student, feet hitting the ground heavily. That had always been one of his most unique qualities. He could go from treading lightly, almost floating on air, graceful as a cat, and then he stomped furiously, and it was that which gave his dances a dynamic air. Dancers were often too worried with looking pretty, and forgot to tell stories through their movements. But Yakov had never been conventionally pretty; his nose and ears too big, his face too wide, his eyes too small. And yet he had been-

Yakov put his hand on Yuri’s shoulder, and the prince went still for a moment, before gritting his teeth and spitting out a reluctant “fine!” before walking back to his rehearsal.

Yakov glanced at Lilia, and she frowned, face cold.

“Not very disciplined, is he?” she commented, breaking the silence. 

Yakov huffed. “No, he isn’t. He’s a hellish student. Never does what he is told to do.”

“That sounds like-” she stopped herself for a second “-what I’ve heard about his instructor.”

Yakov’s face showed a little irritation, but Lilia was expecting that. “That would be me. I’m Yakov Feltsman.”

He was introducing himself.

“I know,” she said. “I’m Lilia Baranovskaya. I’ll be playing the lyre for your student today.”

And she expected some sort of reaction at her human name, but it never came.

“Then you should be in the rehearsal room as well,” he said, demandingly.

She scoffed, but that much he was right about. And she followed to the rehearsal room. “Is he any good? Plisetsky, I mean.” She asked, because silence was an ugly thing.

“He’s the best I’ve ever trained,” he replied, with certainty.

Lilia rolled her eyes. “I wonder how trustworthy that assessment is. Considering your age, you can’t show him what to do any longer.”

Yakov pursed his lips and looked at her, clearly biting back a comment. Lilia examined him and she knew he was irritated that this  _ stranger  _ doubted him, and mocked her age.  _ Especially when she was not that young herself. _

Lilia had not forgotten that she had chosen to look like a more mature woman. In fact, she lamented her decision at the moment. She was supposed to put distance between her and her devotee. She had forgotten about Yakov at that point. She had forgotten he could be  _ old.  _

They arrived to the room, and Lilia stared at Yuri, who was stretching. “Bring me something to sit on.”

Yuri seemed about to answer to that, but the cold glares of both the undercover goddess and his dance tutor stopped him.

“What makes him unique?” asked Lilia, following the young prince with her eyes.

“Huh?” Yakov asked.

“I’ll take that to mean ‘nothing’,” she said, getting out her lyre.

“He’s a great dancer.”

“Does he have a style of his own?”

Yakov seemed shocked by the question, as if no one had ever asked it before.

Well, of course, no one had. Not that he remembered.

Yuri came back and Lilia took her seat.

“Shall we start?” Yakov said

Lilia had first seen Yakov perform when he was 25 years old, and she had been curious of the fact that a mortal who had never outright devoted himself to  _ her  _ could dance like that. Like his whole body was possessed by the need to tell a story. It was intriguing, it was confusing. 

It was mesmerizing. 

And she had seen him dance again and again. The devotion he put into his movements was something she had longed for, even if she hadn’t so known until she had seen him at the stage. She had been invoked several times, for several performances, and she had shone divine inspiration into the hearts of dancers around the world, but Yakov did it on his own. She could only think of how much they could do together.

  
  


“Focus, Yuratchka. You are not focusing!”

“It’s not me! This hag is playing too quickly.”

“Then adjust!”

  
  


Lilia had first talked to him in the spring of Yakov’s 27th year on Earth. She had waited patiently - like only a goddess could do - to be noticed among the spectators, but it was to no avail. When Yakov danced, he didn’t see the public. When he bowed, he bowed at the royalty that had come to see him. And Lilia had been shy then, unaware of how to flourish in the human world, in a human form, how to get his attention.

But she had remembered she was a goddess, after all. The Goddess and Muse of Dance and Choir. So she danced.

She asked her sister Euterpe, also known as  Saraswai in other parts of the world, for help. And she   danced, one day, as Yakov was walking down the street. And she attracted a crowd, and she got his attention. 

Her figure was youthful then. She looked, at most, to be in her mid-twenties. She had deep set eyes, she was tall and graceful, almost beautiful. But it was her dance that made her stunning. She stared at the other dancer with defiant eyes, before spinning quickly.

He understood her challenge, and soon they were dancing on the street, hand in hand. Without rehearsal, they understood each other, each movement. They matched what the other did, they talked through dance.

Yakov had to stop first. His humanity made it impossible for him to dance without rest. But when he stopped, he was smiling. She had never seen something quite like that. She had never seen him smile after a performance.

“You should join our company,” he said, after they had walked away from the clapping crowd.

“I doubt that would be fair,” she said, simply. How could she tell him, after all, that she was a goddess?

“It won’t be.”

It was Lilia’s turn to smile.

  
  


“Take a break, Yuri,” Yakov said. “Drink water. You are not focusing.”

“I’m focusing, dammit!”

He was not focusing.

  
  


It took a month before their first kiss, shared after rehearsing a pas de deux until early morning. Perfecting it to the millisecond. It had been short and tired, sweet. A quick peck and a shared smile. Lilia had heard of other God’s liaisons with humans, but those were nothing like that.

  
  


One time, Yakov sprained his ankle rehearsing, doing a series of spins over and over without rest, and it was the first time Lilia saw tears in his eyes. Frustration, she could read, and having seen devotees suffer the same, she thought she was prepared to face it.

“Yakov, it will heal,” she said, but her voice had trembled.

“I know that!” he had snapped, for a second, before he went really quiet. He sighed.

“I don’t understand. You are usually more careful than that,” she commented, after the shock had diminished.

“I…” he sighed “wanted to impress you.”

She blinked slowly, having grown a little more used to showing expressions in her human form. “You already have.”

“Fine, then! I wanted to show you I was at your level.”

She didn’t press for more explanation except by knitting her eyebrows together. It had worked.

“You never fall, you never get tired,” he continued, tears falling. “I don’t understand.”

Her heart burnt, aching to tell him the reason why. That he merely could not compare to a goddess, but that he was the best human she had ever seen.

She stayed quiet.

  
  


And then four months passed. One night, after a performance in front of the king himself, Yakov came into her dressing room, with a garland of flowers. He put it on her head and laughed.

“You look like a queen.”

“Careful. The king might hear you. What if he wants to make that true?” she joked, face expressionless but mirth in her voice.

He put his arms around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

“He can try.”

“Would you fight the king?”

“For you, I would fight heaven and hell. I love you.”

She stayed in silence for a moment, never having heard those words before. And then she tasted her own tears for the first time.

  
  


Yakov already had students when Lilia and him met. They were never as good as their master.

“What did you think of her performance?” he asked, after a show.

She was honest. “She’s not as good as she could be.”

“I know that. But I don’t know why.”

“Let me see one of your lessons.”

  
  


“One, two, three. One, two- wrong!”

  
  


“Why did you stop her as she was trying to add a fourth spin?” She asked, holding his hand after the lesson.

“It’s not part of the choreography.”

“There was enough time.”

“It’s not part of what I envisioned.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Not your style?”

His face brightened. “Exactly!” 

She pursed her lips and kept walking.

  
  
  


At 28, Yakov got his fourth assignment as a dance master and with it a large amount of money. When he told the company, they reacted badly.

“I don’t understand why you did that,” Lilia said honestly. “We are scared you’ll leave.”

“I won’t leave.”

“Then why did you accept this job.”

“We need money to start a family,” he said, with a particular sparkle in his eyes. And Lilia did not understand why he knelt on the ground, until he laughed and announced: “Lilia, I’m proposing.”

And she gasped, and she almost ran away.

And she said yes.

But it was one thing to have a fling with a human, the higher ups informed her, after summoning her. Another, very different thing, was to be in love with one. To start a  _ family  _ with one. And though they had looked the other way for a while, hoping the infatuation would pass, they weren’t sure they could trust this human.

He needed to pass a test.

Lilia came back to him, and, stern-faced, she announced: “You said you’d fight heaven and hell for me, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, now you get to.”

And finally, she confessed her true nature.

  
  


“What is wrong with you today?” Yakov asked.

“I just…,” Yuri replied, breathless, “am not feeling it.”

  
  


Lilia had kissed him goodbye before her memory was momentarily wiped away. She had waited for days, only for Hermes to come in, shaking his head.

“He failed.”

It still made her furious. It still made her sick.

Pride. Pride was humankind’s downfall.

“What did you tell him?!” she had demanded, tears welling in her eyes, as she barged into the Witch’s home. 

Georgi had looked at her with sadness in his eyes. “The truth. I told him you would always be a goddess. You’d always be better than him.”

A lie. He matched her movements. Since the start, he had understood how to communicate, how to follow her lead.

“That’s the problem,” Georgi said, when she expressed her views. “He does not want to follow. He wants to lead. Have you seen his students? They never develop into something unique, do they? Because Yakov is too afraid they’d surpass him. But he has been surpassed. He wants to be the best among gods and humans. But he can’t. He’s human, he is limited. You can dance to every song. He can’t.”

“I will teach him,” she had said, almost desperately, tears falling. She was begging. “I will teach him to be better.

“Terpsichore, you will always be the goddess, the immortal, the blessed, and he was only a fragile human. You can teach him, but until when? He’ll age. His muscles will go stiff. Meanwhile you will remain capable of changing at will.”

“He loves me!” she howled, chest tight. 

“And he loves dancing more. He loves being the best more.”

She was sobbing by then, knees weak and heart aching. It felt as if it would burn a hole through her chest.She hadn’t known it hurt so much to be human. “That’s a lie,” she repeated, over and over. “Give him a chance. One more chance.”

“It’s not my choice. It was his.”

And they had taken Yakov away from her, wiped his memory and left her to remember why humans weren’t trustworthy.

  
  


“What exactly are you not feeling?!” Yakov yelled, snapping her out from her memories. 

“Inspiration,” Yuri said, breathing heavily. “It just…”

Lilia’s eyes widened. And she raised her voice. “I need five minutes.”

And she left the room to take some air, to try and think of nothing. She was failing her young devotee. 

But the bitterness wouldn’t leave her. The memories were there, dancing in her head, making her ache like it had just happened. And he had no idea who she was. He hadn’t suffered the way she had. He had been selfish. 

And still, she had to wonder, what if she had told him sooner? About his students, about her nature, about her deep admiration and love for him? She had never said “I love you”. And what if they had been able to talk it out before everything went wrong?

Was it her fault?

That was the most hurtful thought of them all, and when she thought it, she had to force herself to replace what had once been affection with spite. It was the only thing that made eternity bearable. 

She took a deep breath and willed her hands to stop shaking. She was a goddess, and had to behave like one.

She went back to the room, where, once again, Yuri was stretching. There was something interrogative about his eyes, but he made no inquiry. 

She nodded and sat back down, concentrating her powers into that lithe human, as she began to play the lyre.

And he danced. First hesitantly, as if counting the steps, recalling them with great care. First to the right, then to the left, jump. One could see Yakov’s face twisting, about to stop him. Lilia could hear his voice - his younger voice - yell “You are not feeling it! Wrong!”. She almost stopped.

But he seemed to contain himself, and watched. And Lilia kept playing, kept focusing on the younger man, trying to shine her inspiration onto him without thinking of Yakov, standing old and grey by her.

Yuri jumped again, touched the ground with grace. Then he moved, standing on the tip of his toes, making no sound, towards her. With a flourish of his arms, he moved back, jumping, turning.

Then he started doing  _ fouettes _ . One, two, three.

A smile appeared on Yuri’s face, a sparkle in his eyes, and Lilia looked at him more intensely, wondering if he was going to get dizzy, if he was going to stop, to fall.

But he didn’t, and she lost count of the  _ fouettes,  _ as he continued moving to the rhythm, as he began to express something. Then he stopped, and Yakov seemed lost for a minute. 

Then, just as suddenly, Yuri began turning, quicker now, and a fond smile appeared on Yakov’s face. And Lilia found herself lost, confused, intrigued by that move. It was something strange, something she had never seen before. It held a certain confidence, but no longer was it rude or unwarranted. It was the obvious certainty of someone who knew what they were doing.

It took all her effort to continue playing the lyre, while her eyes remained on the graceful dancer in front of her. She did not struggle, exactly, but it was harder than it usually was to keep the mood and passion that Yuri was conveying.

Yuri moved to bow just a moment after she realized she had reached the end of the song. He was gasping loudly for air, and he seemed worried.

Yakov approached him with water, patting him on the shoulder. “Very good, Yuratchka. Although, that part after the  _ fouettes _ was not what we had practised.”

Lilia rolled her eyes.

“I kicked ass, who cares?” Yuri replied, once he had evened out his breath.

Bad manners, still he had a point. 

Yakov laughed and said nothing more.

  
  


At the presentation, Lilia clapped for Yuri. She had to. The young dancer had done even better than in his rehearsal, reducing the grooms and the rest of the audience to tears with his passion. It was like a lightning bolt striking them, it was like their eyes couldn’t move away from him. It was magnetic.

It was unique.

As Yuri was approached by the happy grooms, congratulating and thanking them, Yakov approached Lilia. She tensed.

“What did you think of his  _ style? _ ” he asked, visibly proud, but in a different way that Lilia had ever seen him. He did not hold his head high, but grinned. He wasn’t proud of himself.

She realized a second to late she hadn’t replied. “Oh. Well, he’s a very good dancer.”

“Accompanied by a very good player, I must admit.”

Lilia almost smiled. “He had asked for the best.”

Yakov nodded, and then went silent. “He has a show in a few weeks. Do you think you could accompany him?”

She froze a little. Then caught a glimpse of Hermes at the ball. “No. I’m sorry. I have other things to do.”

“A shame,” then someone approached to congratulate Yakov, and Lilia took that chance to leave. But as she did, she couldn’t help but hear: 

“You’ve taught him well.”

And Yakov answered: “The merit is mainly his. I only helped a bit.”

Lilia left immediately for the gardens, needing the fresh air.

The whims of the gods were cruel, and sometimes curious. Who would have thought Yakov would be humbled in such a manner? Humans changed, physically, and emotionally too. She had forgotten about that.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Eros with a garland of flowers on his head, laughing softly, happily, along with his groom.

And Lilia’s heart ached with envy and pain and thankfulness that he hadn’t gone through the same as her. And then he heard, just before she walked too far away to hear, Yakov’s voice screaming at something.

And she shed a tear. And then another. She hadn’t cried since then.

She wondered, what if she had given him time? Time to grow into the man he was now. Would she have loved him like this? Would he had loved her, too?

Could they work it out?

But it was too late now to find out. She couldn’t go back.

Terpsichore dried her tears.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
